91 Letting Go Quotes (to Help You Move Forward)

Letting go and moving on can be one of the hardest things to do in life.

But at the same time it can be one of the most powerful and liberating things too.

So today I’d like to share 91 thought-provoking, short and  encouraging quotes on letting go and living your life fully and happily.

No matter if you want to move on from a situation at work, a relationship and a broken hear, from a bad friendship or just a  negative chapter in your life that has dragged you down for far too long.

Whatever the case may be I hope that you’ll find something here that will help you to move on and let go.

91 Inspiring Quotes on Letting Go

“Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.”
– Hermann Hesse

“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”
– Alexander Graham Bell

“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.”
– Erich Fromm

“Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.”
– Oprah Winfrey

“We need to learn to let go as easily as we grasp and we will find our hands full and our minds empty.”
– Leo F. Buscaglia

“There are things that we never want to let go of, people we never want to leave behind. But keep in mind that letting go isn’t the end of the world, it’s the beginning of a new life.”
– Unknown

It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.”
– Theodore Roosevelt

“The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty.”
– Seneca

“Your past does not equal your future.”
– Anthony Robbins

“It’s not a matter of letting go – you would if you could. Instead of “Let it go” we should probably say “Let it be”.
– Jon Kabat-Zinn

“A very wise man once told me that you can’t look back – you just have to put the past behind you, and find something better in your future.”
– Jodi Picoult

“The answer to every adversity lies in courageously moving forward with faith.”
– Edmond Mbiaka

“Sometimes the hardest part isn’t letting go but rather learning to start over.”
– Nicole Sobon

“Letting go may sound so simple, but rarely is it a one-time thing. Just keep letting go, until one day it’s gone for good.”
– Eleanor Brownn

“I welcomed who I was and left behind who I was not.”
– David Elliott

“Forget what hurt you but never forget what it taught you.”
– Shannon L. Alder

“Letting go helps us to to live in a more peaceful state of mind and helps restore our balance. It allows others to be responsible for themselves and for us to take our hands off situations that do not belong to us. This frees us from unnecessary stress.”
– Melody Beatti

“Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can’t build on it; it’s only good for wallowing in.”
– Katherine Mansfield

“Even a rock moves on.”
– Anthony Liccione

“To let go is to release the images and emotions, the grudges and fears, the clingings and disappointments of the past that bind our spirit.”
– Jack Kornfield

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need.”
– Lao Tzu

“This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet.”
– Rumi

“You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months overanalyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could’ve, would’ve happened… or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move on.”
– Tupac Shakur

“Keeping baggage from the past will leave no room for happiness in the future.”
– Wayne L. Misner

“You must be strong enough to know that love will come to you when you are ready. You must be strong enough to know when to say goodbye, and know that letting go is not weak.”
– Marisa Donnelly

”You have to let go of who you were to become who you will be.”
– Candace Bushnell

“If you want to forget something or someone, never hate it, or never hate him/her. Everything and everyone that you hate is engraved upon your heart; if you want to let go of something, if you want to forget, you cannot hate.”
– C. JoyBell C.

“Sometimes it takes a heartbreak to shake us awake & help us see we are worth so much more than we’re settling for.”
– Mandy Hale

“You really don’t have to burn any bridges to let go… You don’t have to destroy anything. You can just decide to cross over and move on.”
– Marta Mrotek

“You can’t expect to move forward if your emergency break is on.”
– Angela Cecilia

“There’s a trick to the Graceful Exit. It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over — and to let go. It means leaving what’s over without denying its value.”
– Ellen Goodman

“Sometimes you can’t let go of the past without facing it again.”
– Gail Tsukiyama

“Letting go doesn’t mean that you don’t care about someone anymore. It’s just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself.”
– Deborah Reber

“Nothing in the universe can stop you from letting go and starting over.”
– Guy Finley

“I demolish my bridges behind me…then there is no choice but to move forward.”
– Fridtjof Nansen

“Why do people persist in a dissatisfying relationship, unwilling either to work toward solutions or end it and move on? It’s because they know changing will lead to the unknown, and most people believe that the unknown will be much more painful than what they’re already experiencing.”
– Anthony Robbins

“We must be willing to let go of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
– Joseph Campbell

“Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.”
– Raymond Lindquist

“Why let go of yesterday? Because yesterday has already let go of you.”
– Steve Maraboli

“I can enjoy anywhere, and I can leave it. Life is about moving on.”
– Waris Dirie

“Once you realize you deserve a bright future, letting go of your dark past is the best choice you will ever make.”
– Roy T. Bennett

“It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn’t matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over.”
– Paulo Coelho

“I’m guilty of giving people more chances than they deserve but when I’m done, I’m done.”
– Turcois Ominek

“Suffering is not holding you. You are holding suffering. When you become good at the art of letting sufferings go, then you’ll come to realize how unnecessary it was for you to drag those burdens around with you. You’ll see that no one else other than you was responsible. The truth is that existence wants your life to become a festival.”
– Osho

“At some point, you gotta let go, and sit still, and allow contentment to come to you.”
– Elizabeth Gilbert

“When we think we have been hurt by someone in the past, we build up defenses to protect ourselves from being hurt in the future. So the fearful past causes a fearful future and the past and future become one. We cannot love when we feel fear…. When we release the fearful past and forgive everyone, we will experience total love and oneness with all.”
– Gerald G. Jampolsky

“Rehashing the past wouldn’t change anything. Time to move forward.”
– Zena Wynn

“Moving on is easy. It’s staying moved on that’s trickier.”
– Katerina Stoykova Klemer

“It’s hard to be clear about who you are when you are carrying around a bunch of baggage from the past. I’ve learned to let go and move more quickly into the next place.”
– Angelina Jolie

“Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.”
– Lyndon B. Johnson

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.”
– J. K. Rowling

“Stop acting as if life is a rehearsal. Live this day as if it were your last. The past is over and gone. The future is not guaranteed.”
– Wayne Dyer

“The most difficult aspect of moving on is accepting that the other person already did.”
– Faraaz Kazi

“Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.”
– Bob Newhart

“Don’t dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energy moving forward together towards an answer.”
– Denis Waitley

“Holding on is believing that there’s only a past; letting go is knowing that there’s a future.”
– Daphne Rose Kingma

“Letting go is the willingness to change your beliefs in order to bring more peace and joy into your life instead of holding onto beliefs that bring pain and suffering.”
– Hal Tipper

“There are times in life when people must know when not to let go. Balloons are designed to teach small children this.”
– Terry Pratchett

“If I kept saying it; if I kept reaching out. My accident really taught me just one thing: the only way to go on is to go on. To say ‘I can do this’ even when you know you can’t.”
– Stephen King

“Sooner or later we’ve all got to let go of our past.”
– Dan Brown

“If you truly want to be respected by people you love, you must prove to them that you can survive without them.”
– Shannon L. Alder

“No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories.”
– Haruki Murakami

“Life moves forward. The old leaves wither, die and fall away, and the new growth extends forward into the light.”
– Bryant McGill

“The only thing a person can ever really do is keep moving forward. Take that big leap forward without hesitation, without once looking back. Simply forget the past and forge toward the future.”
– Alyson Noel

“It happens to everyone as they grow up. You find out who you are and what you want, and then you realize that people you’ve known forever don’t see things the way you do. So you keep the wonderful memories, but find yourself moving on.”
– Nicholas Sparks

“All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.”
– Havelock Ellis

“Let go of certainty. The opposite isn’t uncertainty. It’s openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox, rather than choose up sides. The ultimate challenge is to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never stop trying to learn and grow.”
– Tony Schwartz

“Let go of your attachment to being right, and suddenly your mind is more open. You’re able to benefit from the unique viewpoints of others, without being crippled by your own judgment.”
– Ralph Marston

“When we go back in to the past and rake up all the troubles we’ve had, we end up reeling and staggering through life. Stability and peace of mind come by living in the moment.”
– Pam W. Vredevelt

“Just remember, when you should grab something, grab it; when you should let go, let go.”
– Unknown

“You don’t need strength to let go of something. What you really need is understanding.”
– Guy Finley

“There’s an important difference between giving up and letting go.”
– Jessica Hatchigan

“You’ve got to make a conscious choice every day to shed the old – whatever ‘the old’ means for you.”
– Sarah Ban Breathnach

“Leaders spend 5% of their time on the problem and 95% of their time on the solution. Get over it and crush it.”
– Anthony Robbins

“To help yourself, you must be yourself. Be the best that you can be. When you make a mistake, learn from it, pick yourself up and move on.”
– Dave Pelzer

“You loved him enough to let him leave… Now you need to love yourself enough to let him go.”
– Ranata Suzuki

“We can’t be afraid of change. You may feel very secure in the pond that you are in, but if you never venture out of it, you will never know that there is such a thing as an ocean, a sea. Holding onto something that is good for you now, may be the very reason why you don’t have something better.”
– C. JoyBell C.

“Letting go of someone we love is the hardest thing we will ever do. Some people never surrender to love for the fear of being hurt. But to not have loved, to not have felt the immense joy it brings, would have been a far worse kind of death.”
– Goldie Hawn

“If you want to fly on the sky, you need to leave the earth. If you want to move forward, you need to let go the past that drags you down.”
– Amit Ray

“If you spend your time hoping someone will suffer the consequences for what they did to your heart, then you’re allowing them to hurt you a second time in your mind.”
– Shannon L. Alder

“My heart might be bruised, but it will recover and become capable of seeing the beauty of life once more. It’s happened before, it will happen again, I’m sure. When someone leaves, it’s because someone else is about to arrive – I’ll find love again.”
– Paulo Coelho

“Today expect something good to happen to you no matter what occurred yesterday. Realize the past no longer holds you captive. It can only continue to hurt you if you hold on to it. Let the past go. A simply abundant world awaits.”
– Sarah Ban Breathnach

“People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh

“Life becomes easier when you learn to accept an apology you never got.”
– Robert Brault

“Life moves on and so should we”
– Spencer Johnson

“Your heart’s strength is measured by how hard it holds on. Your self-worth and faith is measured by finally letting go. However, your peace is measured by how long you don’t look back.”
– Shannon L. Alder

“Anything you can’t control is teaching you how to let go.”
– Jackson Kiddard

“Anything I cannot transform into something marvelous, I let go.”
– Anais Nin

“The best skill at cards is knowing when to discard.”
– Baltasar Gracián

“Let go. Why do you cling to pain? There is nothing you can do about the wrongs of yesterday. It is not yours to judge. Why hold on to the very thing which keeps you from hope and love?”
– Leo Buscaglia

“You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.”
– Jan Glidewell

What is your favorite quote on letting go and moving on? Feel free to share the best one(s) you have found in this article or in your life in the comments section below.

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About the Author

Henrik Edberg is the creator of the Positivity Blog and has written weekly articles here since 2006. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Gothenburg and has been featured on Lifehacker, HuffPost and Paulo Coelho’s blog. Click here to learn more…

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Bui Kim Thoa

    I love this quote :) “You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.” – Jan Glidewell

  • ANN ANULIKA

    Thank you so much for this Inspiring Quotes on Letting go and Moving on. It has really helped me to realize what letting go means. It liberates you, it makes you feel less burdened, it automatically gives you that inner peace that you have been searching for. This word holding back has affected me so much that I now realized that I am not moving forward either because of the grudges I hold against my mum. I believe the above quotes will really go a long way in my life.

  • Md Kalim Uddin

    Dear Brother Henrik Edberg, Special Thanks from dippiest core of my heart for your this sort of positive activities. I most like the Quote-“You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.” Brother, I will be always with your positive work till death, Insha’Allah.

  • Feels good with such kind of inspirational quotes. Experience is the best teacher, respect must be gives to those who use their critical thinking to recover such quotes with their great minds